Exhibitions

Rene Robles, a figure of the Late Modernist period of Philippine art history, will be exhibiting new works of assertionism paintings at Galerie Joaquin. The artist takes mundane compositions – for this exhibit, still-lifes – and imbues them with multiple perspectives and angles. In this manner, Robles’ assertionism hews closely to how art critic Arthur Danto analyzed representational art—that is a “…stand-in for the commonplace.” A painting of a chair, for instance, has infinitely more meaning than the subject it is based on. In effect, an artist substitutes reality with his own assertion of it. Bruno Palmer-Poroner, in his book on Rene Robles published in New York, describes Robles as able to “…view a commonplace scene from an angle, or beneath a table, enabling him to gain arresting composition and special insight.” A chair for an artist like Robles, a commodified product, is then imbued with individuality, character, and the insights of multiple perspectives.

Rene Robles’ “Masters of Modernism: Perspectives” will open at Galerie Joaquin on Tuesday, February 23 and runs until Sunday, 6 March 2016. Galerie Joaquin is located at 371 P. Guevarra Street, corner Montessori Lane, Addition Hills, San Juan City. For more information, please call (632) 723-9418, or email info@galeriejoaquin.com

The new works at the exhibit come at the apex of a storied career. The majority of Rene Robles’ practice belongs to the late-Modernism period of Philippine art history. He graduated from UST’s fine arts program in in 1976, influenced, perhaps, by the debates of the previous generation of artists. By the time of his graduation, the Philippine art scene had moved to a decidedly more intellectual plane. Future National Artists were already settling into style that characterized them, often laced with an eye for perspective and deconstruction. Vicente Manansala, for instance, was already rooted in the kind of transparent cubism that he is known for, and Arturo Luz had nearly abandoned the notion of figuration completely. Moreover, the conceptual ideas of Roberto Chabet, and David Medalla in London, encouraged artists to think beyond mimesis—and indeed, beyond the very medium of painting.

In this ferment emerged Rene Robles from UST. Initially sticking with more palatable paintings of genre and still-lifes, he soon began establishing a name for himself with his unique angular perspectives that were already apparent in his early years. After several exhibits, Robles took further studies in New York (at the School of Fine Arts at the National Academy of Design in 1990). By the time he entered school in New York, however, he was already known for advocating a movement called assertionism in his many exhibits around the globe.

“Rene Robles is truly an incredible artist,” writes Palmer-Poroner. “Not only is he very productive, but his art is rich with imagination and new ideas.” At his Galerie Joaquin exhibit are new works that demonstrate this claim. From a technical standpoint, there are trace elements of expressionist brushwork and foreshadowing. His paintings bring him to the level of an ideologue, defining the parameters of his practice in the manner of a philosopher like Arthur Danto. The commonplace, in Robles’ eyes, becomes a platform to validate an imagination like no other.